"The bottom line here is we have a president and a national security team in the White House that not only does not know how to conduct proper foreign national security or national security even for us at our borders, but he's totally inept at warfare," he said.

"We are in a war, we are threatened by these forces into America crossing our borders, into our airports now."

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appears to be "walking back" on his remarks at the Pentagon last week that it was impossible for the United States to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, without going into Syria, Vallely said.

"Politics is overriding the realities of war and national security," he said. "Gen. Dempsey walked back his comments made last Thursday regarding the threat of ISIS, and not only in the region but external to that, even to Israel and the United States.

"This president continues to tread in all these gray areas of constitutional authority, and I am just taken back that our four-star generals won't stand up more . . . Someone's got to stand up in that Pentagon and stand firm against these threats of ISIS."

ISIS wrested control over a Syrian airfield over the weekend, a move that strengthens the terror group's ability to attack from the sky, Vallely says.

"It depends whether they have the pilots or can get the pilots that can fly those aircraft," he said. " So, we don't know what else they have, but whatever assets or inventory they had at that airfield, at Tabqa, they surely have them all now and will be able to use them at some point in time."

While there is a "kill or capture" order for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the United States and other nations combating ISIS need intelligence on the group, he said.

The United States needs to authorize manned flights over Syria — and support the proxy force of the Free Syrian Army, Vallely advised, saying the Iraq-Syria border is irrelevant at this point. Syrian President Bashar Assad can be dealt with later, he said.

"We need to support the Free Syrian Army over there because they will in fact be able to counter ISIS in some manner as well as the Assad forces," he said. "We don't have to coordinate with Assad."

The United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt are already standing up to ISIS forces, according to Vallely, because ISIS is "out to destroy them as well as us."

In addition to the "caliphate" ISIS says it has established in Iraq and Syria, another is being established in Africa with the Boko Haram terror group, Vallely said.